MARIA COHEN
The very word Erotic comes from the Greek word eros, the personification of love in all its aspects - born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony. When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.
When we begin to live from within outward, in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves, and allowing the power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense. For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society.
I am exploring erotic through my own identity. I approach my practice as an experience, a physical and almost performative moment that allows me to create a visual language to explore identity. All my practice is a trial to unfold my own sexuality and try to reflect and aware it as a power. I use layers and repetitions in my practice as a way to show differences of me in time. This immersive experience is therefore an investigation of myself through time. That means using it as a power, which means to be responsible for deepest feelings and not giving up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society. The repetition in my practice is part of a routine which helps to release, and control the chaos, traps the ideas, and thoughts, making them more structured and logical. Repetition also is a huge part of the process as a factory when you acknowledge your voice and favour from your sustainable repetitive movements which is not visible but still makes you feel calm and energised keep going searching and not giving up. So that means that everyone's efforts and energy accumulate the result itself. That means using it as a power, which means to be responsible for deepest feelings and not giving up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society.
I envision my visual practice as tools for unfolding my own identity, where the idea of language is also imperative and I am exploring how the visual representation of symbols, images and words evoke certain emotions due to the shapes and forms that they take upon when writing painting them out, and how this is similar to the act of painting. The 'painted text' also behaves as a form of materialising thoughts, where it doesn't merely serve the purpose of informing the word's actual meaning, but it also becomes a tool to draw the emotional rhythm of thoughts, and thus also shining evidence at the intimate and emotional process of this experience, which is precisely what the painting process means to me. The outcome is the visualisation of the struggle of the process in an authentic, primal language through physical and emotional exchanges of energy that charts an intimate disclosure of my experiences; materialising thoughts.
When we begin to live from within outward, in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves, and allowing the power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense. For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society.
Audre Lorde
The ambassador's premise is that those I'm a dominant position of power and authority are the only ones who "truly know" how those in lesser positions of power and authority "are supposed to act."
According to the concept of M.Dragonfly, with its pun on the play M.Butterfly, because I think both this chapter and the play speak to much the same issues: presentation of self, perception of self and others, implications for cross-cultural communications, and, perhaps most important of all, the political and socioeconomic power involved in who defines whom with regard to gender and sexuality.
I started experience with filming of myself. I used it previously but never considered it as a part of my practice. I was really embarrassed for using myself as a tool, I used I saw lots of personal in this type of an action. Eventually, through my practice with animation and using mammals as a symbolic image I am interested in experiencing with my own body through my personal experience as a woman. It's a sort of attempt to understand boundaries of my body. Also, it's a way of awareness of woman's sexuality and how it works in real life and digital. This is a performative way talking about real beauty, spontaneous, mistakes, fears, shyness, emotions.
03.03.2021
Cells in my practice and how I express them visually.
Today I would like to talk about cells in my practice. The first time when I caught myself that I draw cells or film spaces which remind diverse of barriers. I did not realise why I have been doing this but now when I looked at these materials through time I thought about it seriously. I am talking a lot about sexuality and fears and I do believe that the range of these facts impacts on one each other from my personal experience. For me cells is not the same as a cage it is more about an asylum where you feel secure. Although this security might be very misleading in fact that a man always tends to hide from reality or from an inner voice and make a decision for the benefit of logical and ethical aspect. On the other hand, the cell can be a place of own security like a human body can be considered as a chamber of secrets.
Interesting, that the cage might have variety of reverse meanings such as feelings of fragility, defencelessness, loneliness or isolation although in parallel this place of meditation, focused on deep understanding and reflection of oneself through array of practice: learning, creation, silence, listening and so on.
I was really hooked of Louise Bourgeois thoughts about cells:
"Each cell deals with a fear. Fear is pain... each cell deals with the pleasure of the voyeur, the thrill of looking and being looked at."
I consider this sentence from the side of sensual context and desire to get out from the cage although at the same time because of personal fears and social attitudes. The cell keeps a man inside what might force him to find ways for expressing pain through the anger, varieties of violence or cultivation of sexual energy and expression it in a way of constructive or creative reflections. I like an idea to be seen by someone it is also about pleasure and sex. I see something perverse in this, also, through those expressions a human being shows the real face of oneself with desires, fantasies and strength to control emotions but at the same time to be brave enough showing personal imperfection.
08.03.2021
First day in the studio after lockdown.
I am in the studio, looking at my wall with black and white drawings. I put my drawings on the floor which I drew at home during the quarantine's time. Surprisingly, I realised how different these sketches are but at the same time how similar these in approach and course of lines. Movements still fuzzy and looping but there is more symbolic images appears. I really enjoy how it all works together in spite of the fact that all of those were made from different media and campaigns. I curiously noticed how every step of research impacts on the next one and how it is embodied unexpectedly in quite logical thread through the whole process of work. In addition, embedding of technologies in my practice allows me to rethink the traditional painting and evolve them from other side.
Also, I am thinking a lot about how to depict all of those artworks together and it is necessary to show the whole bunch of works. I really enjoy the idea of a space is fulfilled of drawings, sketches, digital drawing, paintings as a sort of release through the endless process of frustration, fears and affectation. Basically, every image is a part of the process of cognition of duality, where the process becomes the key meaning rather than the final result.
12.03.2021
Today I am feeling like a beast...
30.03.2021
Today I am feeling myself as a pilot or a bird or an equilibrist who balances between a total of mess in contemporary life and a level of consciousness in a taking decisions and personal choices. We all today feel responsibility for our choices because an impact after making a decision is always considerable for a multiple in diverse aspects of life.
"Matter thus offers an infinitely porous, spongy, or cavernous texture without emptiness, caverns endlessly contained in other caverns: no matter how small, each body contains a world pierced with irregular passages, surrounded and penetrated by an increasingly vaporous fluid, the totality of the universe resembling a “pond of matter in which there exist different flows and waves.”
Multiple is a matter full of porous, spongy and cavernous texture. Caverns endlessly contained in other caverns
I hung sketches on the walls, put them on the floor. From time to time I mix them together or stick them one to another then change there positions. In the centre pop a black and white collage I hung the drawing of a naked woman who is sitting on a chair. The figure looks knackered, overwhelmed and exhausted, allthough, it seems that she feels comfortable to be naked probably it because this condition quite natural and ordinary for her so that might symbolise confidence, independence and freedom.
A symbol or a metaphorical image means a lot in my practice. I capture inspiration and ideas from everyday life. Later, I sort them out from dozen photographs, notes, sketches, books or videos. Usually, I do things unconsciously it is a kind of allowing your passionate, animal nature to lead you up which gives pretty interesting unexpected result. An image of a rabbit appeared in my practice also subconsciously like an impulsive reaction on the event when I was in Russia. For a second I felt myself as a rabbit who was locked in a cell without right to choose.
Hares are often associated with birth and resurrection. They are born, live and die within a short time, in line with the seasons, making them an ideal visual nod to the theme of mortality in art.
Their rapid breading rate also implies fertility and sensuality, yet as a prey animal, rabbits simultaneously indicate innocence and love.
In Judaism rabbits as a symbol of the Diaspora.
Diaspora for me it's a kind of necessity belonging to a cultural group, a tribe, a family or religion like a solid social chain which gives a feeling of stability and illusory (assumptive) order. Also, Diaspora may impacts on a upbringing of a man forming his identity through the religious, social aspect, values and so on. It forms everything patterns of behaviour, habits and attachment to traditions.
18.03.2021
I always try to capture a moment of a physical vibration, shaking and fluctuations which typical for frustration or affectation. I watch it everywhere around wildlife and inanimate things. I catch myself on a thought that I usually deeply feel the engagement among array of things and me. It is the deepest connection with the whole body and the environment around. Indeed, when you can feel and touch the essence of things. In Baroque that looks like training twists and turning its folds, pushing them to infinity, fold over fold, one upon the other. In my practice I use layers as Baroque's folds like a symbolic attitude to constantly changing events from the routine life.
It is like a meditation or trance when every controversial part of me merges and lead my hand and eye to a different perspective of view. In every day life I call it as break for a minute for listening a beat of heart, to feel physical skin or bones, to see buffeting of trees and bushes, to see the connection and strongest sexual energy of things around like mannequins in a shop window, or strongest disgusting smell from mix of places at one tiny place.
31.03.2021
Today I am working in the studio. I continue working with paintings making preparation underlayer for the screenprinting on the top or printing whole image on a transparent piece of plastic.
In parallel I am thinking about how it would be better to work with videos. I find interesting an idea projecting videos on a digital images as a background. I scanned drawings and sketches and began working with them in digital programs. I am experimenting a lot with adjustments such as contrast, exposure, levels, highlight and so on. I cut some fragments separating those from whole image, also deforming them or transforming in 3D objects and then putting back in the original sketch.
Interestingly that the original sketch is behind those images. The image represents itself as an expressionistic painting from mixture of such media as watercolour and ink with text at the heart of it. Text is hard to read because of array black spread sports over the space which I found interesting for the idea about cells or about fear to express yourself openly. Indeed, the adjustments reinforce and deform colour, contrast, erasing or highlighting letters which is symbolising changes and impossibility to hide from reality and endless movement of time which is remembered about everything what you say, said or might say.
It seems curious to me how digital effect reveals hidden energy from the hand-painted sketch. After multiple adjustments it becomes stronger, lesser lyrical and poetic and images become more surreal and futuristic.
"Silence is the way of save ourself"
"Labour is more important than our silence"
Audre Lorde.
22.04.21
I am continuing to speculate about power, sexual power and what the erotic is and how I understand and feel this as a woman so that what kind of tools and metaphorical images I use for expression this topic through my practice. I was really hooked by a book of Audre Lorde " The Erotic As Power" . I find that this essay is very accurate for expressing my own feelings and personal experience about sex and women's sexuality and why this question has such controversial context and meaning.
"THERE ARE MANY kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise. The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling."
"In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives. We have been taught to suspect this resource, vilified, abused, and devalued within western society. On the one hand, the superficially erotic has been encouraged as a sign of female inferiority; on the other hand, women have been made to suffer and to feel both contemptible and suspect by virtue of its existence. It is a short step from there to the false belief that only by the suppression of the erotic within our lives and consciousness can women be truly strong. But that strength is illusory, for it is fashioned within the context of male models of power."
Gold and what does it mean?
Symbolism, landscapes, Gold, artistic view, Universal, Tarot card - deeply symbol, Universal symbols, Icon, Religious
What did he say about wheat and corn?
Why is there music?
Why is there dance?
How is it used?
How this video reflects on my personal practice?
Alcymy how it works in Anselm's paintings in parallel James Elkins "What painting is"
15th April
Today I am continuing to work with animation. It goes so slowly because as much as I am working with digital programs I am discovering more and more opportunities for an experiment and creativity. Almost whole day I made preparations for screen printing. I cut, merged, reversed, curved images which was given unpredictable result. In the adjustment process I realised how would be better to print images over the top of the oil paintings. Also, I was thinking that digital print might work better than Screen-printing which is important for the result. In addition, I caught a thought that the adjustment process or heading several projects at one time gives unexpectedly efficient output when the same symbols and images are embedded one into another therefore changing each other depends on which media I use. Interesting that the main idea does not change only form can vary completely.
I implies on Audre Lorde's discourse she creates a binary between pornography which “emphasizes sensation without feeling,” versus the erotic which is sensation with feeling but also satisfaction, purpose and satiety. She connects this to our sense of work, to not just work for “bread,” but a sense of purpose. In this way, through the power of the erotic, our work becomes not an experience of riches, but one of richness. Our work then “becomes a conscious decision”.
I thought a lot about this artwork. It consists so much pain. in the previous post I mentioned Audre Lorde:
"Silence is the way of save ourself"
"Labour is more important than our silence."
It seems to me so relevant because this artwork is a complex of expressions of a woman who can not say about her feelings. There is bench of feelings: hidden fears, anxiety, anger, power and sexual energy which are still suppressed within our lives of society, tabu, identical and ethical aspects. My art is a way for release, the field of talk, scream, confession. There is a free space to speculate about strength is illusory, for it is fashioned within the context of male models of power.
She creates a binary between pornography which “emphasizes sensation without feeling,” versus the erotic which is sensation with feeling but also satisfaction, purpose and satiety. She connects this to our sense of work, to not just work for “bread,” but a sense of purpose. In this way, through the power of the erotic, our work becomes not an experience of riches, but one of richness. Our work then “becomes a conscious decision”.
I am working with collage first. The sketch goes first then collage on the wall. I used papers ink, wipes, sketches, text. I use oil painting as a preparation for a further process of work as a background. I experimented a lot with diverse media such as oil painting, collage and screen printing. I use them all in collaboration among each other. I usually have an idea and research first. Sometimes, thinking through the process helps me to understand critically how my research depicts my artwork and how the artwork depicts the research, therefore both complement each other. Painting is not a luxury but necessary; as necessary as a bread. Possibilities are necessary. "Being, our very existence, becomes a form of political labour."
For instance, I have done research about rabbits since I did my first animation in Unit 1 and only now I realised when I was making screen printing that representation of 3 rabbits have slightly different connotation with an image of a single rabbit among diverse cultures and nationalities.
Subsequently I transferred print on canvas which is also gave an interesting result quit similar with digital but at the same time not so mechanical and soulless.
A Litany for Survival
For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;
For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.
And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
By Audre Lorde
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/155839/inevitability
Inevitability
There is always a cage at the center, a lockup,
the place you may wind up no matter
how hard you try to follow the straight and
narrow, there's a jailer with a key and no occasion
prevents the key's jangling. The boys at a game in Philly,
let's say, know a few beers could get them put in
that cell, the one kept for the rowdy, the rude,
those whose parameters were long ago
shot to hell by a lonely mother, the boys who step out
of line, who won't acknowledge the fucking line.
Without having laid eyes on the place (you know
the place) you know where's a dried mattress
and a Styrofoam cup of tepid water. Taste it?
Notice the smell? You'll worry it's you,
while above your head, the you you were before
is quoting the score and taking life in gulps,
anxious inside because you knew you
would end up here. You, who never could just
walk away from a too-good thing. You
with something to prove, a drama unfolding
like a thin blanket barely covering the frame.
Vievee Francis
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/155839/inevitability
26.04.2021
The 3 hares are interlocked in a circle in threefold rotational symmetry and each of the ears are shared by 2 hares, so that only 3 ears are shown.
It isn't an easy subject to research, as most of the stories explaining the symbology are largely speculative; there have been many attempts to find the meaning behind the 3 hares, but there exists no record to explain the original examples.
I can however start with historical and geographical facts. The symbol appears in sacred sites from the Middle and Far East, to the churches of Devon (known locally as 'Tinners' Rabbits') and throughout Europe. This encompasses diverse religions and cultures, including Buddhism, Islam, Celtic, Pagan, Christianity and Judaism.
Interestingly, that the oldest one example of the design can be found in Buddhist cave temple in China (581-618 CE); from there it spread all along the Silk Road, through the Middle East, through Hungary and Poland to Germany, Switzerland, and the British Isles. In numerous traditions, these animals were archetypal symbols of women, feminity, female deities, and women's hedgerow magic, associated with the lunar cycle, fertility, longevity, and rebirth. Although, digging a little deeper into their stories, there are also contradictory, paradoxical creatures: symbols of both cleverness and foolishness, of femininity and androgyny, of cowardice and courage, of rampant sexuality and virginal purity. In some lands, Hare is the messenger of the Great Goddess, moving by moonlight between the human world and the realm of the gods; in other lands he is a god himself, wily deceiver and sacred world creator rolled into one.
Among the many different Native American story traditions, Trickster tales featuring Coyote or Raven tend to be best known to non-Native audiences, but there are also a large number of tales that feature a trickster Rabbit or Hare, particularly among the Algonquin-speaking peoples of the central and eastern woodland tribes.
Nanabozho (or Manabozho) the Great Hare, for instance, is a powerful figure found in the tales of the Algonquin, Fox, Menoimini, Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Winnebago tribes. In some stories, Nanabozho is a revered culture hero -- creator of the earth, benefactor of humankind, the bringer of light and fire, and teacher of sacred rituals. In other tales he’s a clown, a thief, a lecher, or a cunning predator -- an ambivalent, amoral figure dancing on the line between right and wrong. In Potawatomi myth, Wabosso is the Great White Hare (and the younger brother of Nanabozho) who travels north to become the greatest of magicians among the supernaturals. The Utes tell the story of Ta-vwots, the Little Rabbit, who shatters the sun and destroys the world, all of which must be created again; and an Omaha rabbit brings the sun down to earth while trying to catch his own shadow. The Cherokee, the Creek, the Biloxi and other tribes tell humorous stories of a mischievous Rabbit who is cousin to Br’er Rabbit and Compair Lapin, outwitting foes and puncturing the pride of friends with his clownish antics.
http://www.vikkiyeatesillustration.co.uk/blog/a-brief-explanation-of-the-three-hares-symbol
P.s. Importantly to research more about rabbits symbolical meaning in Russian and Jewish cultures and describe that accordingly my identity and practice.
post about the working process with screen printing. How it works, what surprises I had and have. What new I realised. What am I going to do next. What the main aim why I am doing this. Why I print so many rabbits?How it relates with other artworks and the whole practice? How research impacts on my practice?
Sex and social control
Sexuality does not merely reflect but is fundamental to the construction and maintenance of power relations between women and men. This is not to deny either the importance of other dimensions of the social relations of the sexes, or the complex relationships between women's oppression and other oppressions, particularly race and class. I have concentrated on sexuality partly from the side of an oppression of women of all races and class which is dominated and controlled through sexuality, both directly, by means of rape and other forms of overt sexual coercion, by being taught to experience the sexual colonization of our bodies as sexual pleasure.
Sexual Liberation or women's liberation
What counts as sexual pleasure, who defines it, who has the power to ensure that certain definitions prevail? Unless we explore these and many other related questions we may find ourselves in the position of asserting a "right" to something that is not in our interests as women struggling to end male supremacy. One way of examining the concept of sexual pleasure, and the broader conceptions of sexuality in which it is embedded, is to look at their development historically, and at the relationship between ideas about sex and the socio-political context in which they take root.
Lorde Summary- “Uses of the Erotic” (Hummel)
In Audre Lorde’s essay, “Uses of the Erotic,” she discusses the cost of the detachment of the erotic as a source of power and the effect its loss has on women’s existence. Basically, the erotic is a source of power that has the ability to create change. She writes, “ erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various source of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change”. In an effort to avoid change, the oppressive systems must corrupt our connection with the erotic.
The oppressive systems have created a “false belief” of the erotic with pornography, creating a “distrust” and “fear” in women of their erotic power. Lorde explains, “For this reason we have often turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the pornographic”. She creates a binary between pornography which “emphasizes sensation without feeling,” versus the erotic which is sensation with feeling but also satisfaction, purpose and satiety. She connects this to our sense of work, to not just work for “bread,” but a sense of purpose. In this way, through the power of the erotic, our work becomes not an experience of riches, but one of richness. Our work then “becomes a conscious decision”.
I think one of the most powerful points of her essay is where she clarifies that distancing ourselves from the power of the erotic is “not self-discipline, but self-abnegation,” and that it should not be admired, but avoided. Lorde also points out that our fear of the erotic power keeps us “docile” and that "recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world.
Questions:
Could a marker that we have tapped into the erotic is when we experience “flow”? What are other markers?
How does that pursuit of “genuine change” connect to Cohen’s “sites of transformation”?
How did the erotic come to be connected with the pornographic? When did that shift happen?
11.05.2021
The connection between Audre Laurde and my art is that expression and resource which I choose for my way of speaking through anger to discharge sexual energy it's always a way to say something, to react on events, to express myself through my art at this moment, at this place. The reason why I am using diverse media in my practice is also, the way to adapt to a current situation and catch a moment of happening at the second, to catch the importance, sensuality, vulnerability and uniqueness of the reality in engagement with me at this second. She writes about ways how erotic can work like a way how a body stretches to music and opens into response, hearkening to its deepest rhythms. Basically, to rely on my reflections art is a way to see things and feel them on a deeper level, to notice the tiniest vibration of life around, to move with nature, to express myself as an animal through paintings, dance or yoga.
That self-connection shared is a measure of the joy which I know myself to be capable of feeling, a reminder of my capacity for feeling. And that deep and irreplaceable knowledge of my capacity for joy comes to demand from all of my life that it be lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible, and does not have to be called marriage, nor god, nor an afterlife.
That sense seems interesting to me for consideration from the side of cells in my practice. Cells might be a projection of responsibility or a grave of responsibility within our lives. On the other hand, our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinise all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives.
Francis Bacon's Visceral paintings, where the line between human and animal is constantly blurred, reminding us that our primal instincts lie just below the surface.
I will write critically about meaning of a beast in my practice relying on such artists as: Francis Bacon.
11.05.2021
You know in my case all painting - and over time, the more it becomes so - is accident. So I foresee it in my mind I see things around as layers transcendental, surreal like past, present and future mix with each other and give a result as an invisible energy. Media transforms it itself. It is always blurring, sensual, sometime with no words and visible contours other time it is annoyingly precise, solid and understandable but still hide a sense inside of it. In painting I use very large brushes and in the way I work I don’t in fact know very often what the paint will do, and it does many things which are very much better than I could make it do. In working with photos I do not mind about result, videos gives me a chance to catch a moment of vibration, digitally I can adjust sketches drawing physically multitude times and in the way I work I don’t in fact know very often what the paint will do, and does many things which are very much better than I could make it do.
I am trying to trap the fact, because after all, artist always were, are and will obsessed by life and by certain things that obsess them that I want to record. And I am trying to find systems and construct the cages in which these things can be caught.
Painting is alchemy
James Elkins
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley is an animation and sound artist archiving their existence as a Black trans person
Focus more on the research of sexuality (sexual energy, identical parts, anger, fears)
symbolical images which are already exist such as cells, rabbits,
To use my identical heritage for wide practical research.
email to Anna with thoughts and struggles
29.05.2021
Collaboration with Isabella Gullo
There is a collaboration. Isabella and I decided to make performative act in collaboration with each other. In our research we are raising questions of embarrassment and boundaries behind the discourse which is a part of our identity. In contrast to this feelings we oppose real nature, an animal instincts, sexual energy, erotic. Interestingly that both of us have such different background Isabella is Brazilian, I am Jewish but was boned and raised in Russia which was impacted on us in different ways but at the same time both of us have feelings of influences of society and a very strong impact of family, traditions, social status and dogma what it is right what is wrong.
There is a consideration of coming out from a comfort zone in a way of acceptance diametrically opposed meanings and to be around but not to be actually a part or do not agree with trends or cultural particularities.
Not to be hidden but still have a voice.
We both the active participants in our artworks, and through this we pends an openness and vulnerability to our audience through universal emotion. Art allows the violation of social norms, and in turn a way for viewers to enter into sharing the human social condition - often in a controlled environment.
For Bella is comfortable to talk and be recorded but not necessarily be visible and express her feelings publicly. For me, in opposite the way of publicity is a tool to overcome through the fear of talking. In our project Bella and I rely on the Tracey Emin's practice influenced a generation of female artists who explore womanhood and feminism through a self-confessional tone. Importantly, that Bella and I decided to merge different approaches, such a symbolic way and autobiographical, in a trial to tackle universal ideas through our relationship to human behaviour and gender.
The lack of symbology in Emin's work forces audiences to focus on the real and often taboo aspects of feminity through modern women's issues, such as menstuation, abortion, promiscuity, and the shame associated with these topics. In my practice, I am in opposite using symbols as hidden natural instinct of a beast. She has carved her own place and continues to produce artwork with her signature strong, yet vulnerable edge.
30.05.2021
Text Isabella Gullo
"My additional notes, also slightly correcting misconception about public/ private:
Maria and I have been continuing to discuss our collaboration and are both interested in the idea of investigating our own personal identity and shared identity: in it's differences and similarities. We both investigate art through a very personal sphere, being open to vulnerability towards the audience's reaction and somewhat challenging social norms especially in term s of female sexuality and empowerment (...there is a challenge behind speaking about such topics and since we both share a desire to be real, unfiltered and even brute/ strong about our views around existing as females and behaving autonomously, this project becomes a lot about embracing vulnerability.)
Maria and I are going to tackle this collaboration as autobiography, in terms of engaging with topics that are universal in a way that is truthful to our own experiences or understandings of it. This will not only become a representation of our relationship, but also a study of our identity, personally, and a way to engage the audience with these ideas.
We have come to an understanding that how we choose to express ourselves can be different from each other especially in terms of being private/ public. There is a necessity within Maria to overcome her personal boundaries with privacy and become public with her thoughts, to exploit them overcome challenges that comes with embarrassment to be seen. On my side, I work a lot with the idea of obscuring my thoughts, of making them enigmatic for the viewer; and isn't necessarily due to embarrassment because I have come to notice that I am indeed very comfortable with being confident to explicitly show my identity and discuss ideas, but instead, I am picky and slightly secretive about when/ where to do it. This idea of choosing what becomes private is completely driven by choice and desire to withdraw myself in a bit of mystery.
Deciding to engage with privacy is a choice and a desire (where sometimes, the opposite is too: I might choose to be very vulgar and explicit about some subjects in my art, but there will always be some element of obscuring and withdrawing, probably because of my personality). Maria is heavily driven by the idea of confronting issues with being private: she has found a voice in her through her art and she is ready to make is heard - her choice and desire lies in only being able to carry on to discover her identity, but also to express the empowerment that comes with this act through another empowered act: performance. Being public is a challenge and so id that of embracing your identity regardless pf societal rules and stigmas, and Maria feels ready to undergo the challenge in this total potential. Personally, I am different because I don't feel pressured at this moment in time to prove my identity, in terms of issues we discuss, in an extremely public way because I enjoy keeping myself at voice is explicitly heard and my opinions filly voiced.
17.05.2021
Tracey Emin and me
Autobiographical slant. The element of autobiography is key to Tracey Emin's ongoing practice. in the process of analizing the practice of Tracey Emin and trying to understand myself why I am feeling a lot of common between us. Similarly, she holds an international stage, for her work tackles universal ideas through her relationship to human behaviour and gender. Her seminal work My Bed helped redefine what a liberated woman can be. In particular, Emin's work influenced a generation of female artists who explore womanhood and feminism through a self-confessional tone. These include artists such as Marie Jacotey-Voyatzis, whose print works explore her emotional life as a woman and include Emin-like misspellings, and Laure Prouvost, a Turner Prize winner who works with self-revelatory video as well as textiles and found objects to create striking tableaux. Emin has evaded aligning her ideology with a larger political cause, and has stated, "I'm happy being a feminist. It should all be over by now."
Her work can be understood as belongings to the ethos of third-wave feminism; a belief that a woman can define her sexuality on her own terms. The lack of symbology in Emin's work forces audiences to focus on the real and often taboo aspects of feminity trough modern women's issues, such as menstuation, abortion, promiscuity, and the shame associated with these topics. In my practice, I am in opposite using symbols as hidden natural instinct of a beast. She has carved her own place and continues to produce artwork with her signature strong, yet vulnerable edge.
Emin continues to be active in her art practice, and the basis of her work remains tied to physical identity through corporeal and spiritual anguish. She is an active participant in her artwork, and through this she pends an openness and vulnerability to her audience through universal emotion. She rejects discussion of the feminist authority in her work, and yet she engages directly with modern female identity. Art allows the violation of social norms, and in turn a way for viewers to enter into sharing the human social condition - often in a controlled environment.
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/emin-tracey/
I
Extending of my research
The decision to create Battersea Park happened just in time to save the whole of Thames-side Battersea from being engulfed by industrial building.
The Grand Vista and Fountain Lake
Installation Rabbits love in the Battersea Park
The installation represents an animation which is projected on the pond in The Battersea Park. The original history of this place is controversial as the idea of the animation. The decision to create Battersea Park happened just in time to save the whole of Thames-side Battersea from being engulfed by industrial building. I was hooked this fact and decided to embed my artwork in the precisely balanced and geometrical exterior of Battersea’s park. It seems me interesting to research an idea behind the relationship between the static of the pond and sharp, snatchy, anxious movement of the video. Also. The contrast between naturally green flavouring plants and synthetic luminescent palette of green in the animation as an inevitable and obvious penetration of industrial technological life to real nature. The sound also plays the ambiguous role between nature and frustrating, irritating sound of animation. Which should give noticeable impact on environment around. The fluctuation and shaking of water and plants will be changed depends on the decibel level which is quite interesting to consider from the side of the technological impact on the environmental ecological aspect of contemporary life.
Project proposel for Copeland Gallery
Technical task:
The Glossy framed digital print hang on a wall. The animation projection hangs next each other. The projection will be projected on a stretched unprimed canvas or a piece of wood, or a glossy piece of plastic. The sizes of screens 150*150. A random fuzzy, annoying noise, which is going through columns putting around, embrace the whole gallery space which creates feeling of anxiety and impossibility to concentrate on images properly.
Exhibition "The Loneliness of the Soul'" Tracey Emin/Edward Munk
“The Death of Marat”
The painting depicts a scene which is a room, a bed and two figures. One of the figure is a man, he is naked and dead, stains of blood on the sheets are flowing down the floor. The other one is a woman, she is also naked< standing in front of the bed like a frozen. She does not move but it seems that she was lost under affection but still thinking and trying to control herself. Clearly, some drama has unfolded here: the sheets bloodied, and the man’s arm hangs lifelessly from his side. It is unclear whether or not the man is dead, but in her obvious calm, the woman appears to be the perpetrator of the crime.
She seems full of determination in spite of the feeling of anxiety and fears. That what usually people do at moments of an unpredictable situation or an accident which was not planned.
Loud shades of yellow-orange and green are surrounded by a shower of strong colours, and a systematic grid pattern of broad, long brushstrokes, applied perpendicular against horizontal, broke with his usual visual approach. The form of this work is so striking that at first the painting looks like a flickering screen. The execution seems just as important as what the image portrays: two naked individuals, a man lying on a bed and a woman standing, facing us.
“Consolation”
The painting depicts two figures, man and woman. She looks like she is crying, covering eyes with hands. Interestingly, that her hands painted red which is reminds a blood or inflammation or burning as a fire.
So that increases the feeling of pain, hurt, grief and sadness.
Captivating Art
The philosophy of Hans Jaeger (1854-1910), the controversial leader of the so-called Kristiania bohemians.
Jaeger believed that private experience was the key to creating art of relevance and quality, and he encouraged artists to "write their live".
Nietzsche had written "God is dead". With these words he provided the motto for the new,
secular conception of reality that was just beginning to emerge. I order to cope with this reality, Nietzsche believed the human individual needed to reinvent himself and take personal responsibility for his deeds.
"Personal responsibility or Duty"
"I do write my personal life"
"I build myself with art"
"I need art as I need God"
"Art is a personal selective sieve"
"Art is a selective sieve of my personal deeds"
"Art as a confession"
"Art helps me to understand myself from my dark sides, makes them lighter."
"Art does not bear lie."
"Art is a mirror of a soul"
"Art is a mirror of a soul, frequently, doesn't blameless..."
My practice can be called as the "Captivating Art". "Art is mirror of a soul, frequently, doesn't blameless". Art in my practice is a tool to write my live, allowing myself to be alive. Way to talk from my own body being expressed through imperfectness of the soul or being the human who takes personal responsibility for deeds. Other words, being a woman and using sexuality as a voice.
Munch's manifesto for a Captivating Art, 1889
Munch was intrigued by the growing tension between the individual and society as a whole that resulted from modern urban life. The private experience of the artist as subject was increasingly being treated as raw material for exploring and understanding the human condition within this more secular and complex reality. Accordingly, the personal losses that Munch had experienced became an opportunity to express something universal about the pain and isolation people were feeling in the modern world. His pictures from this period can be understood as recollections: "I do not paint what I see, but what I saw", his writes in his manifesto from 1889.
Tracey Emin's confessional art 1989
In 1989, a hundred years after Munch sat down in Saint-Cloud to record his thoughts on the subject of "a captivating art", Emin graduated with an MA from the royal College of Art in London, where she graduated with an MA from the Royal College of Art. in London, where she had studied painting. After a voluntary but difficult abortion with subsequent co implications, she decided in 1991 to give up art and destroyed all the pictures from her student period. Emin has described her abandonment of art as 'an emotional suicide". In her autobiography Strangeland, she writes: "Art for me is Like a Lover - Whose Love Alone Was Never Good Enough."
I was doing BA in the Moscow Academy of Art. I was suffering from a terrible long-term period of panic attacks. I decided to give up art because I had a feeling that emotionally it had been destroying me because of sustainable digging in my mind. All this reflections made me feel sick and unsecured however, an idea about giving it up was similar to death. In other words, I was trapped. During that period of time, I realised that Art is me. Art is a way to your soul. Art is always about truth. Art means finding a way to your soul through the dark parts of your personality.
Art is always a process full of traps and confusions.
Traps challenge me, pushing me to come out from a comfort zone and facing with fears and embarrassment.
" I need Art like I need God"
In Saint - Cloud in 1889, Munch wrote that people would turn to his new and captivating art in search of solace, and that in its presence they would doff their hats as they would in a church. With this statement, it appears that Munch had already foreseen the way in which the realm of art would, in some respects, usurp the role of the church as spiritual guide to the secular society that was then emerging. In a handwritten text that Emin contributed to a group exhibition on religious art in 2002, she too explores the potential of art as consolation. The text describes a trip to visit her mother in Margate in 1993, at a time of loneliness and depression. On the train she finds a cheap camera, which she takes with her down to the beach. There she begins taking photographs, and her depression slowly lifts.
"Alone with no one. I still Felt I was part of Something - Something a million, Billion times bigger than me, but Something so incredible. Nature - And With this Feeling I wrote in chalk, The words, I need Art Like I need God. And looking up to the sky I Thought, what a great title For a Show - From one moment in my Life - of having nothing I suddenly - knew that I had so much to do."
Here Emin articulates the idea that art and creative power can serve as a substitute for, or even as a sublimation of, the spiritual, thus justifying their existence and giving them a role in our lives similar to the concept of God.
critical reflections according to this text in relation to my practice.
Experiencing art can be considered therapy. Art is always reflections, visual expressions, and a critical view of my personality and feelings. Art helps me to realize who I am to accept my sexuality as a power and energy as art itself. Every day, the art process leads me to investigate fears meeting them face to face. Sometimes it's trapping me, but it is only one way that helps me find light, not giving up, finding strength, and keep going.
In overall, my art practice through the process can be reviewed as a way to God.
For both Munch and Emin, the body, sexuality, love, and other powerful emotions are driving forces in the creative process. But Munch was a man and Emin is a woman, and until just a couple of decades ago, few female artists were part of the art historical canon. Early on Emin began shining a light on taboos and the tensions associated with sexual abuse, parental neglect, abortions, and what it means to be a woman and a female artist. In her art, the female subject is not some beautiful, passive, and biddable object that fits the man's ideal, but rather a self-revealing individual who dares to stand out as both ugly and demanding, and who illustrates a fear of being alone. In the 1990s, Emin and a number of other British female artists of her generation were dubbed the Bad Girls for their subjective, headstrong art, which emerged as something very different from the more mutually supportive and educative feminist art of the 1970s.
Emin describes herself as a feminist, and she considers the personal a political issues. Her work is unthinkable without feminism and the many female artists who, since the 1960s, have explored "The second sex" in art: Louise Bourgeois, Carolee Scheneemann, Helen Chadwick, and Judy Chicago.
In the book Through the Flower. My Struggle as a Woman Artist (1975), Chicago wrote about the importance of presenting women's personal experiences through art. For women artists, stronger demands for freedom and independence were also a major theme. To live as an artist, one often has to renounce the luxuries of a fixed income and stable living conditions. Many find that children cannot be part of the plan, because artistic freedom comes at a cost.
For me, sexuality, love, anxiety, and other powerful emotions are driving forces in the creative process.
It makes me produce a lot of art no matter what is about. Then it makes me think about what I've done, why I've done it. I put images, videos one above the other, create layers from multiple notes, sketches, and blots like time which is constantly going and never stop even if you are not ready to go more. The idea of taking a break is trapping me as the idea of stop creating and producing can be considered as death.
In terms of the political aspect, the idea of being trapped can be considered as a lack of choices. Being trapped can mean being driven by someone and conceiving doing something with no choice to refuse. Producing art in time can be reviewed as a trap as well but with a choice and paths to be emerge from this because it is out of itself from taboos, political restrictions, social dogmas.
TIME
Time is a prison or trap - not being able to escape from the present.
12.07.2021
Today, I will talk about technical issues in my practice. I do paintings mixing media such as oil paintings, screen printing, and ink and spray. I paint differently, sometimes very diluted, sometimes applying heavy layers. Usage of a dilution to dilute oil paints to the condition of a total randomly transparent moving substance, which is falling and erasing images from underneath layers. This effect is not an accident, I do it for a reason, because it allows showing the movement of time and a quick switch from the present into the past, and how the past impacts the future. So, that means that present traps, past leaving just cut memories and significant gestures. Therefore, this gesture symbolizes the tiniest invisible vibrations and affectation which affect the future.
Collaboration Maria&Isabella
Reflections on a book "Wet"
Chapters "The Erotics of Visuality", "Researching Visual Pleasure"
Identity
gender painting
Painting is a prerogativity of men. I was struggling sustainably dealing with from the judgemental society and capability of producing something as batling. I can be a female artist and
The success does not necessarily comes from people think is successful, it is more about your personal understanding of the success.
I am a machine. Concern is very personal.
Being a woman always dealing with monsters of beauty inside and embarrassment is a way to provoke the society through the embarrassment to use sexuality as a tool. Prevocational use of the
Ugly can be beautiful
Beautiful ugliness
Being a woman always considering
I was always punished by society because I am a woman which makes me feel empowered and pushing me to fight through the practice with confrontation between social attitudes, and me as a human being who just using sexuality as a part of a practice.
Is I successfully transmitted
Embarrassment coming out from the oppression behind the topic of using a women's body as a tool. This matter makes
I feel myself as a man when I paint. it is empowering.
woman is a pattern
lesbian shows the masculinity because it is a habitual pattern how a lesbian should look lesbian is challenging society show an opposite perspective of view feminity. The extrem is challenging stereotypes and expectations. People have more self-awareness that need to challenge themselves in comparison with them who does not question themselves and feeling comfortable living in stereotypical reality.
Our project is about finding your own voice through the embarrassment to express yourself differently to socially acceptable patterns. Minorities trapping themselves because even small groups create society with rules to comparison independency. Indepency empowers a human being because it is only one way to keeping control fragility, vulnerability and fear.
Self-awareness which comes through deep digging into yourself pushing you facing fears and own negligibility increases self-awareness, and pushing to coming cross the embarrassment as an uncomfortable feeling.
Sexuality in terms of female voice is the male. The body and male. it's more about men and women. Embarrassment is coming from struggles from society, expectations, traditions, culture, religion and
Through embarrassment to express sexuality Bella and I raise a question WHERE IS THE BOARDER TO BE A WOMAN AND A RIGHT TO USE SEXUALITY AND BODY FOR FREE, AND NOT BEING JUDGED because OF A GENDER. The purpose of us to show personally how difficult it is to show
it's difficult to fight only experiencing with diverse media expect a body as a tool. Because only the body is able to express and show the real truth about sufferings, and real struggles from life, which everyone of us dealing with in everyday life. It take efforts and courage to take responsibility using your body as a tool. Although, I am questioning myself should I take responsibility for using my body as a brush or the tool or as an artist, I can use it for free. Perhaps, the society and social norms and dogmas make me feel responsible for using my body because it always a risk to face with neglect and judgmental reaction.
The body is the real taboo even if a woman feels real comfort with the body and sexuality and being open about it, but she understands when a nudity involved she will have critics and hate. it's the provocation to use your body as a tease.
Being yourself having courage and self-confidence to use your sexuality as a part an women's identity, and still exists successfully in social life, and not being judged from family, friends and neighbours.
Personal experience makes the practice towards a real life. following to this guilt trap when I starting feeling guilty about self-confident to use the body as a tool.
Embarrassment in a social aspect to use sexuality as a tool and not being judged.
The rabbits in my practice emphasize the human race who lives their lives in a comfortable reality, which is constructed for them for an illusional image of achieving the perfectly happiest life. Although, sometimes, the desire to be aware and question yourself forces us to look for answers. Usually, the brain tries to avoid feeling loneliness creating activities besides work or chilling with friends. The feelings of embarrassment, vulnerability, or potential insecurity scare us and trapping into repeating day-by-day routines, avoiding questions, and attempts to search for the answer for them. On the one hand, the idea to move by your way might be very uncomfortable and scary. On the other hand, it might help to look at yourself and the world around from the other side, turning reality and mind of seeing things upside down. Reoccurring images of the rabbits embody the idea to identify every rabbit as an independent and always unique character, as my personal alter ego, which is constantly changing even though it still looks the same.
The work was a result of reflections on my identity between a chair and me during the first lockdown in Moscow. I consider the chair as a friend or a trainer, a husband or offender, and so on. I was fantasized about the relationships between the chair and me during the first wave of lockdown. This sketch emphasizes dramatic changes around the world and my personal feelings and frustrations about it. The empty chair in the middle of the image symbolizes the home and secureness, loneliness, sadness, and vulnerability.
I used mixed media such as a mixture of watercolor and ink. Watercolor allows me to express my feelings unconsciously with color and water, which is not able to control in the process. Usage of a nib gives the capability to control the process and makes lines solid and consciously blurred.
"The Throne"